In response to the Jackhammer Jesus dildo thread I thought I'd see what people thought about art which is considered blasphemous, though I recongise that thread wasn't about art per se.
It's sort of doubly interesting for me, because a) Ireland recently introduced anti-blasphemy laws which our government claimed were necessitated by certain provisions of the constitution but which had unaccountably been forgotten to be legislated for until now, and the resulting controversy has lead the government to promise a referendum to change the constitution so that these laws (already introduced) will no longer be necessary. and
b) As a professional artist I have produced work which some could and some have considered blasphemous. My interest in religious art and the power and beauty and universality it is capable of encapsulating has always intrigued me as have issues to do with sexuality and our reactions to it in art. Despite my personal views on religion my intention in creating these works was not to offend or cause outrage but to explore certain ideas about art by using some of the most powerful visual languages humans have created combined with some of the most basic subconscious motivations humans respond to, and to this day I am completely seduced by religious art of a wide variety of kinds and consider much of its greatest works to be among the greatest works of art humankind has ever produced. I might not revere god but I revere religious art.
I did work in college which was a combination of jewellery and painting, it combined tiny miniature paintings of naked men in clearly sexualised poses and various states of arousal incorporated into objects which had a quasi-religious symbolism attached to them which at first glance merely appeared to be lovely pieces of Byzantine inspired liturgical looking jewellery until one got up close to the miniatures and realised that the pieces weren't in fact religious at all, though perhaps they still were you couldn't quite be sure.
I went on to exhibit pieces after college which combined similar ideas about unexpected combinations of sexual and religious imagery which explored ideas about potent visual languages capable of communicating simple ideas across cultural divides and despite social or cultural differences. I don't produce work of this kind now because my concerns have changed somewhat, but I remain fascinated by the very primal and instinctive responses almost all humans have to certain kinds of visual cue and the subconscious languages these cues are part of.
I remember one or two people being shocked by some of the work I used to exhibit, though that was genuinely never my intention, but who knows? I might have found myself falling foul of the law if I was still producing it now, though no one has been prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland yet to my knowledge.
My question I suppose is this, what concern is greater? Should the sensitivities of those who follow a faith be respected at all costs, or should we be free to challenge ourselves and ask questions about being human even if in doing that we cause offense to people of faith? How far should respect for religious sensitivities be taken, should people who offend those who follow religion be open to prosecution?
Here's an link to an interesting site about the Irish campaign for repeal of our blasphemy laws btw- http://blasphemy.ie/
It's sort of doubly interesting for me, because a) Ireland recently introduced anti-blasphemy laws which our government claimed were necessitated by certain provisions of the constitution but which had unaccountably been forgotten to be legislated for until now, and the resulting controversy has lead the government to promise a referendum to change the constitution so that these laws (already introduced) will no longer be necessary. and
b) As a professional artist I have produced work which some could and some have considered blasphemous. My interest in religious art and the power and beauty and universality it is capable of encapsulating has always intrigued me as have issues to do with sexuality and our reactions to it in art. Despite my personal views on religion my intention in creating these works was not to offend or cause outrage but to explore certain ideas about art by using some of the most powerful visual languages humans have created combined with some of the most basic subconscious motivations humans respond to, and to this day I am completely seduced by religious art of a wide variety of kinds and consider much of its greatest works to be among the greatest works of art humankind has ever produced. I might not revere god but I revere religious art.
I did work in college which was a combination of jewellery and painting, it combined tiny miniature paintings of naked men in clearly sexualised poses and various states of arousal incorporated into objects which had a quasi-religious symbolism attached to them which at first glance merely appeared to be lovely pieces of Byzantine inspired liturgical looking jewellery until one got up close to the miniatures and realised that the pieces weren't in fact religious at all, though perhaps they still were you couldn't quite be sure.
I went on to exhibit pieces after college which combined similar ideas about unexpected combinations of sexual and religious imagery which explored ideas about potent visual languages capable of communicating simple ideas across cultural divides and despite social or cultural differences. I don't produce work of this kind now because my concerns have changed somewhat, but I remain fascinated by the very primal and instinctive responses almost all humans have to certain kinds of visual cue and the subconscious languages these cues are part of.
I remember one or two people being shocked by some of the work I used to exhibit, though that was genuinely never my intention, but who knows? I might have found myself falling foul of the law if I was still producing it now, though no one has been prosecuted for blasphemy in Ireland yet to my knowledge.
My question I suppose is this, what concern is greater? Should the sensitivities of those who follow a faith be respected at all costs, or should we be free to challenge ourselves and ask questions about being human even if in doing that we cause offense to people of faith? How far should respect for religious sensitivities be taken, should people who offend those who follow religion be open to prosecution?
Here's an link to an interesting site about the Irish campaign for repeal of our blasphemy laws btw- http://blasphemy.ie/
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